Page 53 of The Sirin Sisterhood (The Sons of Echidna #2)

Lai

“You have some explaining to do.”Freya pushed Lai against the wall, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

It served him right for caring and coming over to check on her.

She wasn’t as badly hurt as Lucy, but he wanted to make sure she was okay, wandering over to her room as evening fell over the village.

He wasn’t even sure why she was upset with him.

Was it because they intervened and helped them?

It wasn’t against the rules. In fact, there were no rules.

They just had to emerge victorious, and they did—Freya with the key and Lucy with painful favors.

The air forced out of his lungs came out as a laugh, which only infuriated the woman further.

“I mean, probably. You’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

“What manner of monster did your brother turn into? I thought you were a pack of dogs!”

Ah. Just that, then? “Why would you think that?”Lai placed his hands over hers, gently encouraging the woman to let go. She did. “I mean, sure, my father is, but the whole family gimmick is that we roll the dice on what we turn into. Echidna was the mother of all monsters, not just hounds.”

She shook her head, sinking onto her bed, her mind seeming far away.

Lai frowned in annoyance at yet another twinge of guilt.

He would have to take care of that budding conscience at some point; it was getting to be troublesome.

Perhaps he could have omitted less in his stories, but the cat was out of the bag now, so what did it matter?

Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little bad that he hadn’t been more honest with her.

She really was trying to help them; he could have told her the truth about his family.

He could just imagine the look she would give him if he confessed his father was still alive.

Freya looked down at her hands. The cuffs of her sleeves were embroidered with phoenixes.

“My sisters told me of your family. How dangerous you are, and how we must avoid you at all costs. I think now I understand why. I misjudged your strength in assuming you are all the same.”She looked up at him, steel in her defiant stare.

“My sisters are both firebirds. As were all of their ancestors before them, going back as far as Sirin and Alkonost themselves.”

No surprises there. Most of the families kept a single blood inheritance; Lai’s was an anomaly. Echidna had spawned a vast array of mythical beasts, from sky-shattering dragons to foxes so swift they could never be caught. That particular roulette wheel had never stopped spinning for them.

“They do seem a little overprotective. None of us are really all that scary. Klein was lucky. He’s lethal in water, but on land?

He’s way too slow and heavy. He’d have been toast if he’d gone toe to toe with almost anything else.

”Lai knelt on the floor by her feet, making himself smaller, less of a threat.

Freya stared into empty space, but her hand reached over and ran through his hair absently.

Lai returned the gesture of comfort, resting his head in her lap.

“So, you are all different? Your father was a dog, and your brother is a hydra. What are you?”

“A dragon.”Lai bluffed. He wasn’t about to come second to his brother: a dragon was way cooler than a hydra. He didn’t care to think about where a wyvern ranked.

Her hand slowed for just a moment before continuing the gentle petting.

“Usually, I get a more impressive response. Am I not gonna get a gasp? Or a laugh of disbelief? Are you alright?”

He got up and sat beside her, pulling her into a cautious hug.

To his surprise, she didn’t fight it at all.

Instead, Freya leaned in, buried her face in his chest, and sobbed as though she’d saved up a lifetime of tears, and the dam holding them back had burst all at once.

Her shoulders shook uncontrollably as he wrapped both arms around her, startled by the sudden outpouring of emotion. Was it something he’d said?

Freya leaned away after what felt like an eternity, her face red and puffy.

She toyed with the hem of her dress, scrunching the fabric into a tight, twisted braid, twisting it until the threads threatened to burst. Lai braced himself.

He knew she was building up to saying something, and after a few minutes of silence, she released the fabric, letting it unfurl. Her thoughts followed with it.

“I knew from the very beginning that I wasn’t related to Agata and Sabira by blood.

Most of us aren’t; the other sisters have all come from somewhere else, led to the coven by their desire to escape their families, except me.

I never knew my family. I didn’t want to know them.

My sisters told me they didn’t want me.”

Freya took a deep breath, waiting for Lai to say something. He didn’t. He simply took her hand in his, encouraging her to go on.

Side by side, they both watched the last of the light disappear outside, the darkness reaching into the room.

Freya struggled to voice her thoughts, but Lai knew precisely what she wanted to say.

He stared at their reflections in the window, the slightly tilted panes showing only parts of their faces—the right side of his and the left side of hers.

The glass combined them into one image, and the face reflected back was perfectly symmetrical and whole.

How had he not seen it sooner? The blonde hair, the pale blue eyes, the rounded nose, and the full lower lip.

But how? How could it be possible?

Mother would never have allowed it. She’d loved her kids with the ferociously protective love you only heard about in myths, the kind of love that would cause Gods to hesitate before daring to interfere in their lives.

And his father had loved her.

Lai thought back to his first moments alive.

Of course, he couldn’t remember any of it.

All he knew were stories. TheArtemis was half a day from making port.

His Godfather had been the one to deliver him.

His mother was so sick she’d barely made it.

She’d been asleep for the first three days of his life.

Coldness swept over him. Three days asleep and half a day from making port. She hadn’t known she was carrying twins. That was why the birth had been so difficult. Three days was plenty of time for Aris to steal away with the girl.

The debt he owed to the witches was fucking child support.

“How old are you?”He asked, meeting her eyes in the reflection.

“Twenty-four.”

He laughed. It wasn’t an amused laugh. It was sadness, and anger, and acceptance, and a bitter laugh followed, pain seizing him by the throat as he raged against the surfacing grief.

Grief for his mother. For Freya, his sister.

Grief for himself and all he’d missed in losing her.

He didn’t know why Aris had done what he had, but it didn’t matter.

“I’m going to kill dad.”